


Help

by Melodious329



Category: Leverage
Genre: M/M, hurt/comfort bingo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-19
Updated: 2011-04-19
Packaged: 2017-10-18 09:06:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Melodious329/pseuds/Melodious329
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hurt/Comfort Bingo Square:  Stockholm Syndrome</p><p>Eliot's been captured before, but he's never had something like the team to protect.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own, don't sue

Sweat drips down the side of Eliot’s face, but he can’t wipe it off. His arms are tied up above his head, wrenching shoulders that have been dislocated too many times, pulling so that he’s just barely on his feet. He’s panting, shuddering, squinting against the bright lights that prevent him from really seeing his captors, only hearing their barked questions.

Wearily he shakes his head, his soaked hair spraying droplets of sweat. The electrodes are attached to the sensitive insides of his thighs and the shock when it comes has his muscles locking so hard his screams are stuck in his throat, all he feels is that sizzling raw pain of electricity and all he sees is white.

*********

Eliot’s still panting as he’s dragged back to his cell by his two guards, his feet scraping against the unfinished cement floor and sending those painful tingles of friction careening up his legs. Electric shock is a persistently popular form of torture as far as he can tell.

He chuffs a laugh as he’s dropped naked and wet onto the frigid floor of his cell. What the team would think to see him now. They think he’s too macho, full of his own bravado, that he has too much pride to show pain. But any retrieval specialist that has earned the name has known humiliation. There’s no pride to this even if he makes it out.

Shifting a little in vain to protect his injured ribs from the pressure of the floor, Eliot groans. He’d been taken in the middle of a job, but he’s fairly certain that he wasn’t being held by the mark that the team had currently been after. He had been fighting off the mark’s goons in a warehouse, when he had stood still long enough to be hit by a dart.

It was smart, always smarter to take the enemy down from a distance, though Eliot had never believed in doing things that way. When he woke up, he was freezing and naked and hog-tied, which was fairly par for the course and let him know what he was in for. Extreme temperatures, the vulnerability of being unclothed, the agony of twisted numb limbs were all common ways to get him to talk.

They could have just left him tied up until he was lying in his own piss and screaming in pain, but instead he’d been drugged again and then dragged out for the first of these sessions. But worse than beatings and electric shocks was sitting in this cell with nothing but his own thoughts.

Before Eliot had always taken comfort in the fact that Aimee was safe from his world, safer without him than with him, in fact. But now he worries about the team, the team that he does hide his pain and weaknesses from. He worries that they’ll be caught stupidly trying to rescue him. He worries that they’ll be caught even if they don’t try to rescue him. He worries that they’ll be arrested trying to continue the con without him. And he worries…he worries that they won’t try to find him at all.

Growling at the familiar, hated path of his thoughts, Eliot tells himself that this is exactly why he doesn’t work with a team. He just got so caught up in the whole thing, in the whole family thing, that he managed to push those thoughts to the back of his mind, managed to delude himself into ignoring this inevitable situation. This time he has something to lose more than his own life.

His captors know he’s working with a team, though they don’t seem to know specifically about Nathan Ford and his merry band of thieves. They’ve been asking about his current team, his current job as well as asking about his past jobs, his past employers.

Eliot has been tortured before. Torture is always popular despite evidence saying that its use is just as likely to render the victim incapable of recalling the correct information. He’s been faced with his own death in Russian roulette, he’s been strapped into a Chinese ‘death bed’ for seven days in his own waste until his limbs atrophied, and even water-boarded once. But despite his familiarity, Eliot is not laboring under the delusion that he’s invincible. He knows he’ll talk, eventually, with the right pressure. He doesn’t have time to wait for the perfect moment to get out of here, he has to get out now, but he hasn’t seen any opportunity.

He’s cursing himself for being ten kinds of a fool for ever getting involved in the team, when the door opens again. He can’t hide his surprise. Either they’re stepping things up or he lost time again. He hates drugs, hates that he doesn’t even know how long he’s been here, how long the team has been alone.

He turns his head when he realizes that there’s only the sound of one pair of feet. The guards always come in a pair to get him. Eliot tries to push himself up as the man kneels beside his prone body, surprising him with a gentle hand on his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, he subsides, repressing the desire to crawl away or clock this guy, but he knows better, knows to wait til he sees a weakness he can exploit rather than just fight uselessly. He hates this, hates having a stranger touch and manipulate him, never knowing if the next touch will be painful or demeaning or just professional and cold.

But this man is unexpectedly gentle. The hands deftly turn him over off of his belly, careful of his injuries and supporting his head until Eliot is lying halfway into the man’s lap, propped up by the man’s body feeling kind of…protected. He hasn’t really looked at his guards as people rather than obstacles but he looks at this man now. The guy is big, tall and broad, dark floppy hair and dark eyes and probably as old as Eliot if not a little older.

The guy isn’t looking down at him, is reaching something on the floor off to the side. When the guy turns back, Eliot can see it’s a drinking cup…and Eliot is desperate for it. He doesn’t know how long he’s been here, or how often he’s been drugged, or how often he’s been given nasty dirty water to drink out of a pail, but he knows that his hunger has moved past the noisy, rumbling stage and his throat is parched from screaming and sweating. It doesn’t matter to him whether it’s poisoned or drugged, if they want to drug him they will and if they want to kill him, he’d rather have a quick death than give up his team.

Eliot brings a hand up to reach the cup, but he’s stopped by a firm tug on his long hair, not cruel but a warning. Letting his hand drop back down, he glares wearily. But the man doesn’t meet his eyes as a tender hand brushes back the hair clinging to his face and then lifts the cup to his lips.

It tastes like water, not that that means anything though deception really isn’t necessary any more. It tastes like salvation and makes him long for things like showers and food...and family, the team. Finishing the water, Eliot looks up at his captor’s face again, sees those dark eyes looking at him this time with an unreadable but mild expression.

Licking lips that are still dry and split, Eliot growls, “Guess y’all don’t want me dead yet.”

There is a ghost of a smile on the man’s wide lips at his words and then the man settles Eliot back down on the cold hard floor. Hands linger on his naked skin, brushing lightly over some of his injuries and Eliot waits for the humiliation, for the light touches to turn into more, into pain, but it never does.

His captor simply stands and leaves, leaving Eliot alone and confused in the dark. Shivering now, Eliot slowly maneuvers onto his side to minimize the amount of skin touching the floor and to curl in on himself for warmth. He feels colder and more alone now for having felt the unexpected warmth of the other man.

Sighing heavily, his fatigued body fights against his overburdened mind. If his nights are normally ruined by nightmares of everything that’s happened to him, everything that he’s done, being held captive doesn’t make him sleep any better despite his exhaustion. His thoughts recently have circled around two concepts, memories of everything he’s ever done to deserve his current treatment and trying to figure out how to get out of here because his team doesn’t deserve the same treatment.

But in the aftermath of those soft touches, Eliot’s mind concentrates on a third option. He thinks of another man with dark floppy hair, Nate. The guard touched him the way that Eliot had often thought, hoped, that Nate would touch him. The team looks at Eliot like he’s superman, like he had only ever used his powers for good, to keep people safe, like innocent people had never been caught in the crossfire of missions for the greater good. He doesn’t want to lose that, lose the way that Parker and Alec feel safe with him, look up to him like an older sibling who was the mediator between the parents and the kids. He doesn’t want them to see him like this, doesn’t want them to know he ever needed help.

But Nate has no illusions about a man like him. And despite that, Nate had let Eliot on the team. Nate had trusted him with the team, trusted him with Nate himself, like he patched Nate up that time. Nate respects him, despite what he is capable of, because of what he is capable of. He wants Nate’s attention, wants Nate to be proud of him, wants to be worthy of Nate’s attention. And he wants…he wants Nate to see him weak and hurting, wants Nate to know that he isn’t superman, to know that sometimes even Eliot Spencer needs someone to lean on, someone to patch him up.

*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*

The next time the door opens, Eliot listens to two pairs of boots stomp over to him. Two pairs of hands catch him under his arms and drag him to his feet and back down the hall. Eliot doesn’t look over to see the face of the man who had given him water last night, who now acts as any other guard, hands now rough and demanding. Shaking off his curiosity about the guard’s actions, Eliot prepares himself to resist this session as best he can, knowing what’s on the line.

When he’s dropped back into his cell again, Eliot can barely crawl to his bucket, can barely get on his knees to take a piss there instead of all over the floor. He’s trying to gently lower himself back onto his belly when the door opens again and he’s not even surprised that it’s only one pair of boots that emerge in his line of sight.

This time the guard has brought some sort of medical kit. Eliot laughs as best he can with his face pressed against the floor, biting his lip to keep the sound from becoming a groan of pain. Why would they want to patch him up? Yeah, he won’t be able to talk if he dies of sepsis too soon, but it seems a little redundant.

The guard settles him back on his knees, leaning Eliot forward so that the guard can reach his back, one strong tan arm crossing Eliot’s chest, supporting Eliot’s weight. Gently, he feels a hand sweep his hair to one side and off his lacerated back. This time there had been canes and whips, running from his tortured shoulders to the backs of his thighs.

Confused, he tries to muffle his sounds of pain as the wounds are gently cleaned, but Eliot ends up clinging to the arm across his chest as the man makes soft sounds like he’s trying to soothe a child with a scraped knee.

“Why are you doing this?” Eliot gasps out.

The hand stills on his back, leaving Eliot tense and gasping and clinging, feeling like he’s broken more than the silence, he’s broken the intimacy of whatever it is they’re doing.

But after a moment, the man’s gentle ministrations continue as does whatever drugged-out trip Eliot is obviously experiencing to imagine this. But then the man speaks.

His voice is smooth and low, a deep baritone that says, “I want to help.”

“It’d be more help,” Eliot growls, off-balance with this whole thing and striking out, “if you just killed me.”

The guard doesn’t say anything else and neither does Eliot. He just finishes cleaning the wounds, but before he lays Eliot back down, his hands rubs low and intimate on Eliot’s belly and he smoothes Eliot’s hair away from his face again before he stands.

**Leverage**Leverage**Leverage**Leverage**Leverage**Leverage**Leverage**

Eliot doesn’t even remember being dragged to his cell the next time. He wakes up as the guard pushed his dislocated shoulder back in, panicking and trying to push the larger man away.

“Hey, hey, “ the guard holds him still until Eliot’s still on his own, calming as he takes in his surroundings and searching his memory if he told them anything, anything about the team.

It had been the Chinese technique called ‘tying of the ropes’ this time. Nobody is quite as ingenious as the Chinese when it comes to thinking up tortures. A rope was wrapped around his neck and then both ends were wrapped around each arm down to his wrist before they were secured to the ceiling, forcing his arms up at an impossible angle. His left shoulder dislocated as it had many times before when his captors kicked the back of his knees, forcing him to kneel.

After fifteen minutes, his eyes were leaking tears and they started to question him. At thirty minutes, he was roaring, in pain and trying to cover up the sounds of their questions. He has no idea what he might have said, he couldn’t think, couldn’t…

He doesn’t remember passing out. Oh God…

“You’re going to tell us eventually,” the man says evenly.

Eliot recognizes the words for the threat they are. Even if he hadn’t said anything this time, if this continues, he’s going to talk, going to tell all about the team, going to betray the team.

He’s still panicking, feeling the flood of adrenaline, fight or flight, in his veins, but he allows the guard to maneuver him up off the floor. On getting to his knees, Eliot’s first instinct is to roll his shoulders, checking for damage and trying to approximate their limitations should he need to use them soon. But one sharply barked order, “Don’t,” from the guard has Eliot subsiding.

Relaxing into the man’s controlling hands contents the guard and that relaxes Eliot. Large hands swipe Eliot’s hair away from his face, and then lift a cup his lips. It’s sweet this time, like Gatorade maybe, but mostly he appreciates the wet slide of it down his abused raw throat. He knows that he has a bloody line around his neck.

As if the guard is hearing his thoughts, the man moves then to put the cup down and pick up the antiseptic wipes, gently moving them over Eliot’s newly torn skin. Eliot doesn’t ask why again. He’s watching the man’s face and, though he anticipates the man bringing the cup back to his lips, he waits for his head to be tilted back to easier drink.

Trailing a thumb down the side of Eliot’s face, the guard watches as Eliot licks his lips. Then the guard speaks, “You need to rest. Killing you won’t get us the information.”

Eliot nods, grateful for the reprieve and drops his undamaged right hand to squeeze the guard’s thigh in thanks. The gesture seems to be appreciated when the guard cards his hair gently through Eliot’s hair as he’s being laid back on the floor.

Suddenly, Eliot reaches out again, touching the man’s hand hesitantly to prevent the man from withdrawing. “What’s your name?” he asks.

The guard actually smiles then. “David,” he says simply.

*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage*Leverage

Eliot sleeps fitfully, freezing and aching and so hungry he feels dizzy just lying on the floor. Asleep he dreams about the team going through the same tortures, dreams about not being able to save them. Half-conscious he worries about them and wonders what they’re doing, wonders if they’re losing sleep over his disappearance, wonders if they care.

He’s grateful when he hears the door open, grateful when he hears one pair of boots. His hand, seemingly without his permission, slides across the frozen floor towards the man who kneels beside him. David’s hand is warm as it curls around Eliot’s frozen fingers, holding on even as David uses his other hand to carefully maneuver Eliot up to sitting again. Unfortunately, there’s no part of Eliot now that doesn’t hurt and he releases a low groan as he’s moved.

David tucks Eliot more securely into the cradle of his body and buries his fingers in the length of Eliot’s hair, supporting Eliot’s head as he drinks. Then Eliot is tipped forward and what is probably antibiotic ointment is put on the lacerations on his back.

Eliot allows himself to be maneuvered like a doll, feeling safer is he just follows David’s lead. David obviously allowed Eliot to skip a session, he gave the team another day of life and Eliot more time to prepare. He’s practically asleep as David is lowering him back to the floor.

The next time Eliot wakes it’s to the distinctive sound of something moving in the air vents above him. It takes a moment for his sluggish brain to comprehend that the noise must be Parker it’s so unexpected.

He tries to push himself up on his hands despite his screaming shoulders as he hears the patter of her tiny weight hitting the cement floor, but she moves immediately past him to the door, picking the lock to open it. Twisting his head so he can see, he sees the door swing open to Hardison and Nate and a cloud of smoke. What the hell?

But he can’t support himself for long so he’s forced to drop down to his belly as the two men rush towards him. Eliot feels exposed, more than just his nudity, Hardison and Parker now see what he is, see him weak and helpless, see the kind of violence that he’s been on both sides of.

“Jesus,” he hears Hardison murmur, but Nate is all efficiency.

“Right, pick him up under the arms, Hardison,” Nate says.

“I can hear you,” Eliot interjects but his comment is overridden by Parker saying, “But what about the blanket?”

“We’ve gotta move him quick,” Nate continues as if Eliot isn’t sentient. “We’ll put the blanket on him outside.”

Eliot grits his teeth as pressure is once again put on his shoulders. They pick him up and drag him towards the door much the same as Eliot’s guards have been dragging him out of his cell every day. He gasps as he thinks of David, afraid suddenly that Hardison blew him to bits or...Eliot lifts his head just in time to see the back of David’s head turning a corner.

“Wait,” Eliot mumbles as he tries to move forward out of their grasp. “David!” he tries to shout.

David turns briefly, lingering for just a moment, before he turns to run off and Eliot is dragged out of his cell in the other direction. He’s dragged through clouds of dissipating smoke, what was probably a smoke bomb rather than a real bomb. They have to go up stairs and Eliot manages to get his feet underneath him a little, enough to help instead of depending on Nate and Hardison’s strength. As Nate had ordered, Parker wraps a blanket around his nakedness right before they’re bursting into the sunshine and falling into the van.

He feels like a moron lying in the back of the van wrapped up in a blanket with Nate and Hardison crouched in the back with him. Funny how he’s so much more humiliated now than he was screaming in that prison. The car jerks into motion even as Sophie exclaims from the driver’s seat, “Eliot! Is he alright?”

Nate proves that maybe he did know Eliot was conscious and aware before when he asks softly, “Do you need a hospital, Eliot? Stitches or anything?”

“No,” Eliot growls, though it’s as effective as ever with this group as he’s currently speaking into the bottom of the van. “Just drop me at my place.”

It’s cacophony then as three voices dissent at once.

“Eliot,” Sophie starts with a flourish. “You need our help…”

“What?!” Parker nearly screeches.

“Really? Really? You’re going to go all macho now?” Hardison does screech.

“Look,” Eliot tries again. “It’s not like this has never happened before.” He catches what he said and attempts to correct it before anyone can speak up again. “I don’t need help.”

“We’re taking you back to my place,” Nate says, deciding Eliot’s fate without even looking at him. “Let us at least see you through the night.”

Right now Eliot doesn’t really have much of a choice, though he feels more like crawling into a hole to recuperate in peace rather than having them all staring at him through the night. He’s supposed to take care of them, to take the pain because he can, he’s not supposed to come crying to them afterward, moaning about his injuries.

He doesn’t worry about it overly as he’s asleep shortly after Nate makes his pronouncement. He wakes to Hardison touching his shoulder and Parker in the back with him, hovering too close.

“C’mon man,” Hardison encourages softly without looking into Eliot’s eyes. “You gotta wear clothes to go inside.”

Making a half-growling half-groaning noise, Eliot tries to push himself up to sitting, ignoring the way that Hardison helps him, propping him up from behind. Parker is a little too enthusiastic about shoving his hapless limbs into the sweatshirt they brought, and he refuses her help to get into the sweatpants. They brought him boxers too, but getting one thing on is difficult enough even with Hardison supporting him surreptitiously as he strains to lift his hips up.

Nate doesn’t even see his struggle, is looking instead out the back windows like he’s keeping a ‘watch out’ or trying to give Eliot privacy. Yeah, because what part of this is private?

Parker literally shoves his feet in some sneakers, his sneakers meaning they went to his house. He tries not to think about it, instead beings to push himself, sliding him towards the doors that Nate has opened for them, Hardison helping still from behind. Sitting on the edge, Eliot lifts his arm, voluntarily accepting help as Nate slides underneath it. Hardison then takes his other arm and Parker slides out last with the blanket.

They go up the backstairs and Eliot Nate and Hardison straining under his weight despite him trying to help. He hates it, hates this, hates being a burden to them.

Sophie goes in first, leaving the door open for them as she immediately heads over to the couch, trying to fluff it or something. Eliot doesn’t care because as much as Nate and Hardison try to slow his descent, he mostly just falls at the couch anyway.

Eliot’s still gritting his teeth, trying to keep in any sounds of pain even though he knows that they can see it written all over his face anyway. Sophie’s behind the couch and she immediately starts fussing over him, first tying his hair back out of his face.

He doesn’t brush her off because his shoulder’s too fucked up to do it himself and he can’t help tipping his head back into her hands when he feels her nails scraping gently over his scalp. It’s over too quickly, even though he wouldn’t admit it, and he lets his head fall forward again to see Parker and Hardison staring at him.

Well, Parker is decidedly not staring at him which is just as telling as she stands there clutching an armful of pillows and blanket. Hardison, though, is staring right at his neck, at the red line where the rope dug into his skin. Self-consciously, Eliot adjusts the neck of his sweatshirt but he knows he can’t pull it up far enough to cover the wound. He only hopes it’s not bleeding.

His movement seems to prod the others into action. Parker comes toward him, placing a mountain of pillows at one end of the couch before she’s grabbing his legs and swinging them up onto the other end. Reluctantly he lays back and she smiles, pleased before draping the blanket over him and tucking it tightly around him.

“Hey, man, I, uh, recorded a whole bunch of games, you know, while you were gone, thought you might want to watch them later, after we got you back, but…yeah,” Hardison trails off as he’s putting up six different games of different sports on six different tvs. How does he expect Eliot to watch any one of them? And he’s expected to watch anything now?

“How long?” Eliot cuts in.

“Wh-what?” Hardison asks nervously.

“Ten days,” Nate answers calmly, coming back into the living area.

Eliot nods, adding that information to his memories of his captivity. “Who was it?”

Hardison is still looking jumpy but now it’s overlaid with an air of being upset that Eliot is ruining his post-torture game-watching plan. “Now? I thought we were gonna, ya know, chill and watch the game for a while…”

Eliot sees Nate wave his hand at Hardison which the younger men take to mean that Hardison should just get on with it. Huffing as he often does, Hardison changes the tvs to sync and show a single image.

“This guy, Tan Yongjie, was the underling of Li Xuechun when you stole a painting from him,” Hardison begins. “Since then there was some infighting and, well, Li didn’t make it.”

Great, they researched his old jobs. This just keeps getting better and better. Eliot looks over the picture. He doesn’t recognize the underling. The guy’s Chinese, but Eliot doesn’t think that his interrogators were. “Did they hire local muscle or bring over their own guys?”

“What?” Hardison asks, confused by the interruption to his flow. “No, look he rented the building from this guy under this company name and…”

“But the guards, the interrogators, were they in the organization to begin with or were they hired here temporarily?” Eliot interrupts again, wondering about David, wondering if David is going to be in trouble now that Eliot is free.

“Uhh, I don’t…I didn’t…” Hardison stutters as he clicks buttons to find the answer.

“Nevermind,” Eliot says wearily. “No, it’s fine.”

He can feel them still staring at him, watching as if any second he’s going to implode or burst into tears or something. He’s just tired.

Fortunately then, Sophie reappears over the back of the couch holding a steaming bowl of soup. Parker’s pillows are doing a good job of propping him up so he can easily take the bowl from her.

“We got you some pain medications, I have…” Sophie is looking at the names on a collection of bottles when Eliot interrupts her.

“I don’t need anything but some food and rest,” he says politely. “Maybe some ice,” he offers.

Sophie doesn’t look entirely pleased with his refusal of the pills but she’s placated enough by his asking for the ice that she doesn’t say anything. His shoulders still ache like a bitch from spending who knows how long tied up, but as he tries to eat his soup, no one says anything about the pain in his expression or how slowly he eats or if his hand trembles.

He realizes now, they’ve all made a ‘comfort Eliot’ plan, Parker with her pillows and Hardison with his taped games and even Sophie with the soup that he knows she didn’t make and is probably from a nice restaurant. He hates the idea that they think he needs all this, but he can see that each of their plans are also comforting them, making them feel useful. So even though it makes him feel useless, he lets it go.

Nate, though, hasn’t contributed, hasn’t shown evidence of a pre-planned out comfort. Eliot glances over the back of the couch to see Nate leaning against the counter in the kitchen sipping a mug of coffee as he would any other day. Strangely though, Eliot doesn’t feel relieved that Nate isn’t trying to mother him, he feels kinda…neglected which is all kinds of stupid. He just wants to feel accepted by the one person that really knows him, the one person Eliot really wants to notice him.

Instead he turns back to Hardison and Parker waiting patiently. “Wasn’t there a hockey game while I was gone?” he asks.

Parker smiles at his apparent acceptance of their hovering and Hardison jumps to sync all the tvs to the pre-recorded game. Sophie heard him too and calls out that she’ll make the popcorn.

They’re fighting for spots to sit since Eliot is taking up the whole couch as he sets his mostly finished bowl down on the coffee-table that had been pushed closer to the couch in preparation for him. He takes out half the pillows from behind him, dropping them to the ground so he can lay down more.

Sophie comes back with several bags of ice wrapped in towels and a couple of ibuprofen which he takes gratefully before she heads over to Parker with the popcorn. He places one on each shoulder before trying to pull the blanket up over himself.

When he wakes next the game has been switched to a movie in his absence. He takes the now-melted bags of ice off and puts them on the coffee-table before he turns his head to see Parker and Hardison have taken his extra pillows and are lying on the floor. Sophie is sitting in the armchair behind his head with a bowl of popcorn on her lap. Nate is sitting in the armchair on the side of his feet reading a book instead of watching. There’s a glass of water on the coffee-table now that Eliot drinks before settling again.

The next time, Eliot wakes to darkness. Parker and Hardison are now asleep on the floor in a pile of pillows and blankets though it doesn’t look like they’re touching. Sophie isn’t to be seen, but Eliot suspects that she’s upstairs in Nate’s bed. Nate is still sitting in the same chair with a lamp on to read by.

Before giving himself up to Sterling, Nate had acknowledged that he needed Sophie and it was true. Nate needed Sophie’s mother to his father, and so did the team, but a romantic relationship had not flourished between them since they got Nate back. It was one complication too many perhaps, they needed each other too much.

Eliot comes out of his musing to see Nate looking at him over the book. Deliberately Nate sets the book aside. “Do you need anything?” Nate asks quietly.

If Eliot weren’t in so much pain, he might have shifted uncomfortably to sudden be the object of Nate’s intense gaze after everything today. As it is, Eliot knows that he can rebuild his strength faster if he leans on them a little.

“Are there crackers? Or bread or anything will do,” Eliot replies gruffly.

Nate nods and stands up from his chair, making his way quietly into the kitchen. He comes back with an open package of crackers, a couple of ibuprofen, and a glass of orange juice that he places on the coffee-table. “Sure you don’t want those pain meds?” Nate asks as he sits back in his chair like he already knows the answer.

“Nah,” Eliot says simply. He’s had worse than this before but he doesn’t say that. Instead, he picks up the crackers and begins eating them, trying not to make a huge mess of himself in the process. In a lot of countries he’s been injured in they just didn’t have meds, or anesthesia, or even gauze. Besides most narcotics make him feel nauseous.

Nate doesn’t question him or fight about it, just sits back in his chair watching Eliot eat. It’s not like Nate’s never seen him eat before, but watching him now…It’s different when it’s nurses or doctors, even soldiers and other hitters who commiserate and have been there themselves, but to be injured in front of the team, it’s too revealing. He feels like a specimen under a microscope, because he’s so wholly different than the rest of them.

“You had us worried,” Nate speaks up.

Eliot has so many questions he wants to ask. What did they do when they noticed he was missing? Did they think he had left, even for a minute? Did they contemplate leaving him to his fate because it didn’t concern the team? Did they work through the nights to find him or did they sleep easy in their beds having done what they could? But he doesn’t ask, doesn’t really want to know the answers no matter what the answers are. And it doesn’t really matter what the answers are. They’re his team and no matter what they did or felt, it wouldn’t change the way he tried to protect them.

And Nate didn’t say it like he was starting a discussion, he was simply stating a fact. So Eliot just nods, puts down the rest of the crackers and picks up the juice and pills. Nate is settling back in with his book as Eliot closes his eyes again.

Eliot wakes later to darkness again. Nate is still in his chair with the lamp on, but now he’s asleep, the book lying forgotten on his lap and his head tipped back on the couch, mouth open. Eliot thinks he’s kinda adorable.

Fortified with soup and crackers, Eliot manages to stand up and make his way to the bathroom unaided to relieve his bladder. He muses that it’s really the little things like being able to piss in private that makes all the difference. Though, he supposes that’s actually a cultural thing. He’s also been in countries where women would simply move a foot off the road, hitch their skirt around their hips and think nothing of pissing right there.

He’s tempted to turn off the lamp and remove the book from Nate’s lap as he makes his way back to the couch, but it’s a passing thought. No matter what he wants from Nate, they don’t have that kind of relationship.

When he wakes again, it’s light and Eliot can smell breakfast, eggs and bacon. Which is odd because he was certain before he was captured that none of them could make breakfast. Opening his eyes, though, he spies the takeout container waiting for him on the coffee-table. None of them are in sight in the living room as he sits himself up, neglecting to swallow the groan as he does so.

One by one, they’re drawn to him by the sound. Parker and Hardison are both eating pancakes covered in syrup and Sophie brings him a fork and a glass of juice and ibuprofen before sitting with her bagel and lox. Nate appears long after the others holding just a cup of coffee and looking exactly like he spent all night sleeping in a chair.

Hardison turns on some morning cartoons and ends up explaining the show to Parker who’s looking at him like he’s the crazy one. Eliot sits up and eats most of his breakfast, eggs and sausage and a biscuit. He stands by himself and walks to the bathroom to prove he can before bringing up going back to his place.

Sophie opposes the idea, but Parker and Hardison seem almost relieved, taking it as a sign that he’s really ok. Nate simply nods his consent and gets his keys.

They chat amicably on the drive, Nate asking Eliot to check-in or Parker will be breaking into his place. Eliot consents and tells Nate that he’ll only need a couple of days. Neither mentions the way the team had slept over last night to watch over Eliot, the way Nate had stayed awake, or tried to.

He knows he should be satisfied, relieved, overjoyed that Nate is being professional, that Nate is not trying to hover. But when it’s just the two of them and Eliot isn’t trying to be strong for the team, he wishes there was something more. Is it wrong to want to have someone fuss over him, someone he trusts to actually see him weak and not exploit it, not hold it against him, is it wrong that he wants it to be his boss?

It’s strange, the relief the Eliot feels walking into his own house. It’s no more permanent now that he’s with the team than it was when he was by himself, but it feels different. They may have had to move three times now, but the team is permanent. It makes his space feel more his. Sterling was wrong on two counts, Nate is a thief and the team is putting down roots. They all have something now that they can’t leave behind, each other.

Eliot spends a total of two days in his own house. He can’t reach the lacerations on his back but he soaks in hot water and Epsom salts to clean them and relax his muscles. He ices his shoulders near constantly and makes another appointment with the surgeon that had just fixed his shoulder. There’s enough in his fridge that he makes himself meals, but eventually he goes to the grocery store and stocks up again.

On the third day, he shows up back at Nate’s house like they all do all the time, showing them that he’s ready, that he’s still the same person as before. None of them mention anything again though Eliot knows they can still clearly see the marks on his throat and wrists. He’s not really into turtlenecks.

Well, Sophie tries to get him to sit down and eat more and make him tea, but it’s kinda nice as long as it doesn’t draw any extra attention to him. Parker whacks him on the shoulder as she often does, her own way of showing affection and Hardison bitches at him and neither is careful of him and he’s glad. They seem just as desperate as he is to put his momentary lapse behind them, his lapse from protector to victim, Nate especially.

Nate seems to be careful of him for a while, seems to have a hard time looking at him, is careful not to touch him, like he’s trying to prevent himself from doing anything to comfort Eliot and instead is keeping himself more aloof. But by the time Nate’s outlining their next con, he’s studying Eliot’s face for any sign that he’s not ready for it yet.

The con is more careful than their usual plans, more recon to make sure that there won’t be a guard sneaking up on Parker or harassing Sophie that Eliot would have to take care of. But Eliot wasn’t stuck in the van with Hardison, either. He ended up with Sophie at a business convention held in a nondescript office building. Strangely enough, this particular office building is temporarily housing one of the world’s largest diamonds, unrecognized because it’s a conflict diamond passed from Liberia’s President Charles Taylor to al Quaida back in the late nineties and now having been sold to an unscrupulous businessman who didn’t even have a huge mansion to display the thing in.

You just never can tell about people. Supposedly Charles Taylor also gave diamonds to the model Naomi Campbell, and now she has to appear at his war crimes trial. Bored, Eliot excuses himself ostensibly to go to the bathrooms but really to take a look around. He’s lucky to be here at all since he’s still healing. Usually Eliot waits til he’s almost fully healed because he can’t protect the team effectively if he’s hurt enough to have limitations. But this time, Eliot and Nate both knew that the team needed a new con, needed to get back on their feet and know that Eliot is mentally able to continue.

But what Eliot sees as he rounds the first corner of the offices has him questioning his own mental stability. “David?” he hisses.

The man in front of him doesn’t hear, so Eliot quickly scans the room around him and follows after David. “Hey,” he says raising his voice a little to be heard.

As expected, David throws out a punch that Eliot quickly blocks, letting David realize who it is on his own time. Surprise doesn’t fully explain the expression on David’s face as he recognizes Eliot.

“Eliot? What are you…?” David’s words trail off as he raises a hand to Eliot’s face in a move that Eliot wouldn’t normally allow. “It’s good to see you.”

Feeling even more uncomfortable than usual in his suit, Eliot shrugs, but before he can answer he hears Nate talking in his ear. “Eliot? Where are you? You’re supposed to be…”

Surreptitiously, Eliot removes the earbud as he tucks his hair behind his ear. To David he says, “What are you doing? What about after the…after I escaped?” His voice is gruff and annoyed like when Hardison is using geek speak. He feels almost guilty for escaping.

David’s face is considering, scrutinizing for a minute before he answers. “They’re blaming us, Eliot. Since they couldn’t get anything out of you, I owe them money…There’s a businessman here, deals in illegal diamonds mostly for personal use and display.”

“I know. That’s why…”

David cuts him off. “I need your help, Eliot, those diamonds are the only thing that’ll get me out from under, but it’s really a two person job.”

Eliot just nods, letting David explain what he needs. “At the end of this hallway, there’s a room, looks like every other room, 12B. Should be two guards just inside the door guarding the diamonds. They’re not even in a safe, just a bag guarded by two men.”

Nate and Hardison certainly hadn’t known about any other diamonds in any other room besides the safe that Parker was currently breaking into, but Eliot trusts David. David saved the team, prevented Eliot from have betraying the team long enough to be rescued.

“When you go in, other guards will be notified of the security breach so I’m going to go take care of that beforehand.”

“Got it,” Eliot growls, preparing himself by assessing his current injuries. Then with a nod from David, he’s stalking off toward door 12B.

Checking his watch, he’s not actually surprised when he sees Parker coming down the same hallway towards him.

“Hey, Nate’s been calling for you on the coms, where is yours?” Parker says as he passes by.

“Not now, Parker,” he growls. He can’t afford for the team to interfere and throw off the timing. He knows she can’t yell after him, not without attracting the wrong kind of attention.

Eliot realizes two things when he enters 12B. One is that there are more than two guys in here, but more importantly, he realizes that David set him up. There are no diamonds in this room, he’s the distraction for David to steal the big diamond that Parker already has.

Both Eliot and the dozen men with guns are at a disadvantage, him being in a confined space with guns pointed at him, them being hesitant to shoot him and draw attention to this room. He can’t take out them all without one of them getting off a shot though, so they’re at a standstill.

With that in mind, Eliot takes the time to look more thoroughly around the room. It looks like some sort of control room for monitoring the diamond while it’s in this building. That’s verified when a moment later some sort of alarm sounds and half the gunmen scurry towards the computers, leaving the other half anxiously trying to keep their guns trained on Eliot and not look to the computers.

“The diamond’s been stolen,” Eliot hears in a muffled, horrified voice. He imagines they’re trying to shut down the room with their furious keystrokes even though Parker’s already out thanks to Hardison.

There are more muffled voices that Eliot only partially listens to in favor of keeping his attention on the guns that are wavering in their attention to him. But there are still too many to take advantage of the confusion. Things move in his favor, however, when he hears them decide that two will stay in the room with him while the others go to find the diamond.

First they gesture for him to get on his knees, facing away from the door and the men all move behind him. He listens as most of them depart the room, listens as one gunman moves to his right, attention split to the computers since Eliot can hear him clicking. He can hear, feel, one gunman behind him, left-handed, the gun trained on him, but then it happens, the mistake he was waiting for.

The muzzle of the gun touches Eliot’s back. Smoothly he stands, turning left on the axis of the gun, a smirk crossing his lips as he grabs the arm with the gun with his left hand and then uses his right to push the gunman at the man behind the computers even as the man fires. He doesn’t need much of a distraction as he picks up the first thing he sees, a laptop, and throws it at the second guard before taking one, two steps and punching the guy, dropping him.

He’s luckily unhurt, except for the strain on his healing shoulders and the bit of blood sprayed on his shirt from the bullet that hit the first guard.

The con…fuck, the team, he just walked out in the middle and…David, where is he? Eliot is boiling mad as he stalks out the door again, running straight into Nate.

“Eliot, I heard a shot. What’s going on?” Nate is terse and worried, but Eliot’s head is fairly spinning.

“Parker? The con? Is it…?” Eliot barks out.

Nate softens a little instead of shouting back. “It’s fine. Parker got out and we’re still on track. But who were you talking to?”

“David, he…a guard, from…” Eliot shakes his head unable to express who David is and what he feels, angry, betrayed, and still worried.

“A guard?” Nate questions. “Did you know him from before?”

Eliot shakes his head, long pieces of his hair escaping the tie. “No, I didn’t know him before. He was…a nice guy, coulda let them do worse.”

A strange look passes over Nate’s face, akin to the one he wears when he’s just come up with an even crazier con on the fly when everything’s already in shambles. “And he sent you in there?”

“He needed help and…the con didn’t,” Eliot explains though it doesn’t make him feel any less guilty. “I owed him…But he set me up. Where is he?” he focuses on his anger rather than the other conflicting emotions.

“Hardison sealed the room with David and the guys with guns inside,” Nate says indifferently.

“What?!” Eliot makes to move past Nate but he grabs Eliot’s arms. For one horrifying moment, Eliot thinks of pushing Nate off, shoving him physically aside. What the… “He’s unarmed, Nate, he didn’t…” Eliot doesn’t even know how to finish that thought.

“We called the cops, Eliot. They’ll all be going to jail with what’s still inside that room.” Nate pauses, looking at Eliot’s expression before continuing, “Stockholm syndrome. You empathized with your captor.”

“What?” Eliot says surly in misplaced anger and defensiveness. “I have been caught before, I’m not about to fall for that kinda bullshit.”

“You had us to protect this time. It’s why you don’t work with a team,” Nate says without judgment but Eliot can still see the questions, the possibilities in Nate’s blue eyes.

Eliot looks down to see he’s inadvertently caught Nate’s nice dress shirt in his fingers, twisting the material in his grasp. Dammit, he wants to protect the team and he almost betrayed them, did betray them running out in the middle…

Smoothly Nate slides a hand under Eliot’s ponytail to grasp the back of his neck firmly and pull him close. Eliot goes tamely but his body is stiff as it’s pulled against Nate’s side.

“It’s not weakness. It’s actually a good survival strategy. By empathizing with your captor, your captor empathizes with you, and is less likely to kill you or your family. But it doesn’t just stop when you get out.”

Family was said quietly, intimately against the sweaty hair at Eliot’s temple, and he finally relaxes, letting Nate prop him up. He isn’t sure what’s happening, isn’t sure what Nate is doing but it feels good, it feels good for Nate to touch him like that, Nate whom he knows he can trust with himself.

“I was trying to stay away from you, trying not to baby you…but you needed me close the whole time,” Nate whispers to himself.

A hesitant hand pressed against Eliot’s still healing back, carefully pressing Eliot’s closer. “Let me help you?” Nate asks.


End file.
